2 February: Eine Grosse Katastrophe

Our departure for Africa is less than 48 hours away, and we are not even close to being packed! I’ve revised our packing list a million times, so at least I know what I’m bringing, practically down to my last pair of socks.

As if last-minute packing weren’t enough to worry about, our hot water heater decided that this would be a fine time to break down. DH got up this morning and had no hot water for his shower. We have radiators, so this also meant we had no heat. I had to go next door to our landlady and she called a repairman right away. She asked me if it was too cold in our house and if I wanted to wait at their house but I declined – too much to do! The repairman showed up promptly and set about diagnosing the problem. He had to go get a new part and then came back to finish the job. By mid-afternoon he was done and the place was getting cozy again. I suppose we are really lucky it happened before we left; otherwise it may have gone unnoticed and our pipes might have frozen!

Later this afternoon I was busying myself getting all of our camera equipment together. I found a battery in a desk drawer, still in its packaging, and wondered which camera it was for. It looked to be about the same size and shape as the batteries for my Canon SLR. Without giving it much thought, I slipped the battery into the camera. I instantly regretted this momentary lapse in sanity. I tried to get the battery out again; it was stuck. I had to use the blade on DH’s mini Leatherman to pry it out. The battery was hot to the touch and the battery compartment gave off an acrid burning odor. I had this horrible sinking feeling and I thought, “No, no, no, no, no….I did not just fry my camera.” I put the other (correct) battery back in and switched the camera on. No dice. I waited a few minutes and tried it again. Nope. I got on the internet, found the Canon customer service hotline, and talked to an extremely nice man who sounded like he could be someone’s eccentric uncle. He said to put the camera in a cool, dark place for a couple of hours. Other than that, he said I could send the camera to Canon and they could tell me how much it would cost to fix it. I said I was leaving for Africa in two days. He said, “Oh. I’m sorry.” He suggested that I might be able to get a good deal on the previous model of the Canon Rebel digital SLR because a new one has just come out. I thanked him for his help and hung up.

After getting over the fact that I had just ruined my beloved camera less than two days before perhaps the most important photographic opportunity of my life, I considered my options. For a fleeting moment I thought about bringing our old Canon film SLR, which should be able to use the same lenses as our digital camera. But then I thought about how many dozens of rolls of film I would have to buy, and how much it would cost to get all that film developed, and I realized that it would be about as much as a new digital camera. DH called a short while later and, not being very good at keeping secrets, I told him what happened. He actually responded quite calmly (winning major husband brownie points) and, after thinking about it for a minute, said, “Well, we’ll just have to go out tomorrow and buy a new camera.”

Postscript: So that’s what we did. We dropped off our dog and cat at the Tierhotel on Saturday morning and then, when we should have been packing, we went downtown, shopping at MediaMarkt, Saturn, and a small camera shop. We ended up buying the newest Canon EOS digital Rebel XT, which is called the 400D here, at the camera shop, because it was not much more expensive than the model that we already had. We figured we might as well upgrade to the latest technology. Still, that was about 800 dollars we were not planning on spending. The guy waiting on us was rather shocked to make such a big sale in a matter of about three minutes. He asked if I needed anything else for the camera and was surprised when I said no, but then DH told him that our other camera was kaputt and I added that we’re leaving for Africa tomorrow. We also bought an extra memory card, so I now have enough memory for about 2,000 photos on the SLR and another 1,000 photos on our point-and-shoot Canon. Hopefully that will be enough! We spent the rest of Saturday evening packing. I didn’t go to bed until after midnight, but I was happy, because my bag weighed 30.4 pounds!

1 February: Prologue

“I had a farm in Africa…”
So begins Karen von Blixen in the film Out of Africa (and presumably the book that inspired the movie, although I’m embarrassed to admit that I haven’t read it yet). Never in a million years did I imagine that I’d be going on a two-week safari to Kenya and Tanzania while living in Germany, at the tender age of 31!

We started planning this trip about eight months ago. MIL had talked about the four of us (me, DH, MIL, FIL) going to Africa for several years, but when Germany came up, we had to postpone our plans. Finally last summer MIL talked us into it; after all, the airfare would be cheaper for us coming from Germany than it would be from Michigan. MIL’s travel agent in California recommended a company called Micato. I was skeptical at first, not holding a lot of trust in travel agents, but after some research on the internet I realized that MIL had probably found the best safari company on the planet. Micato has been voted the best safari company for the past four years by Travel & Leisure Magazine, and the only “complaint” I could find was that they cost too much. People say you can organize your own safari for far less money, but that sort of defeats the purpose of a stress-free, worry-free trip, doesn’t it? None of us had any interest in taking chances on our first safari. Next we had to choose between Micato’s tours in South and East Africa. Of course our highest priority was wildlife viewing, taking price into consideration as well, so after looking over all of the itineraries in Micato’s gorgeous full-color brochure, we ended up selecting their most popular trip, the Stanley Wing Safari, which is a two-week tour through Kenya and Tanzania, hitting five of East Africa’s most famous parks and reserves: Amboseli, Tarangire, Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti, and Masai Mara. (Micato’s trips to South Africa sound wonderful, but they spend as much time in cities and vineyards as they do in the game parks.)

Back in October 2006 DH and I purchased our tickets to Nairobi on British Airways (via London, where we would meet up with MIL and FIL), which cost about $2,000. We didn’t do much else to prepare for the trip until December, at which point we started worrying about all of our immunizations. I had gotten most of mine out of the way when I was in Michigan in December, but DH had to get all of his done here in Germany. He got his first round of shots in December and then we both went back to the doctor in January for our second Hepatitis A&B shots. Then DH had to go to the Gesundheitsamt (health department) to get his Yellow Fever vaccination. One day after work we took the U-Bahn downtown and got off at the Schwabstraße stop, thinking it would be a short walk. Let’s just say the street was a bit longer than it had appeared in my quick perusal of the map. We ended up walking about a mile and would never have found the place if I hadn’t happened to glance up at one point and saw a tiny sign on the wall over my head that said “Gesundheitsamt.” We walked in, followed the signs to the travel clinic (easy to find once we found the word “Reise”), and told them what we were there for. DH filled out some paperwork and got his shot from a friendly male doctor who spoke in English. Mission accomplished!

The other major hassle was getting our Kenyan and Tanzanian travel visas. In the U.S., Micato recommends that you use a visa service. I called them and was thrilled to learn that they have offices in Germany. I corresponded with the Berlin office and they emailed me all of the forms we needed. Unfortunately getting visas means parting with your passports for a short time, so we had to wait until we got back from our Christmas trip to Rome to take care of this, which meant we had a window of about one month to get everything taken care of. I sent in all of the paperwork along with our passports via overnight mail right after the first of the year, requesting their most expedited service. It took about two weeks to process all four visas, and finally on January 23^rd we got our passports back in the mail. I must say, I was extremely relieved when that envelope arrived.

The only other thing we had to worry about was, of course, packing. The list Micato provides is pretty vague and not very practical, but I got a great packing list from LyndaS on the Fodor’s internet forum who went on the same safari last summer. She answered all sorts of critical questions, like whether the hotels have hairdryers and which plug adaptors we needed, and her packing list was invaluable!

We received our Micato duffel bags a few weeks before the trip (ours were delayed because they were accidentally sent to California first), along with our detailed itinerary and complimentary Micato flashlights and luggage tags. The bags are made of dark green, heavy-duty cordura with a big Micato logo on them. Everyone says it is a good idea to use these bags because then the tour operators know exactly which bags to pick up and it decreases the chance of your bag being lost or left behind. Unfortunately, the bags themselves weigh a whopping 8 pounds, which cuts significantly into our 33-pound weight limit. They are also huge – if you were to fill your bag to the top, you would far exceed the weight restriction! Fortunately we are pretty good at packing light and were well within the limit, with several pounds to spare for souvenirs. I even decided to take my full-size tripod at the last minute because I had so much room. In the end, all of the time and effort that went into the packing list paid off: we used just about everything we brought and didn’t miss anything crucial. (Except I couldn't find my rubber clothesline and never found a replacement in Germany.)

Now, on with the story!